setxkbmap: Multiple layouts with different variants

Question

Using setxkbmap from a user's .xinitrc, I'd like to configure:

• German keyboard layout (de) without dead keys (variant nodeadkeys).

• French keyboard layout (fr) with dead keys (variant basic).

So far I only managed to specify the same variant for both:

setxkbmap de,fr nodeadkeys

Is it possible to specify different variants?

Solution

As per xorg docs and archwiki:

You must specify as many variants as the number of specified layouts. If you want the default variant, specify an empty string as the variant (the comma must stay)

i.e.

setxkbmap -layout "L1,L2, ... ,Ln" -variant "V1,V2, ... ,Vn"

In your case:

setxkbmap -layout "de,fr" -variant "nodeadkeys,basic"

Comments

[Boris Verkhovskiy]

If one of your keyboards doesn't need a variant, put a comma and then leave the value blank -layout "L1,L2" -variant "V1,"

[Boris Verkhovskiy]

You might want to also set a key to switch between keyboard layouts, such as the two shifts: setxkbmap -option grp:shifts_toggle

[kohane15]

Here's the code to switch between qwerty and colemak using the toggle Alt+Shift: setxkbmap -layout "us,us" -variant ",colemak_dh_iso" -option 'grp:alt_shift_toggle'